SOA Strategy & Systems Integration

In a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), resources are made available to other participants in the network as independent services that are accessed in a standardized way. This provides for more flexible loose coupling of resources than in traditional systems architectures. SOA - service-oriented architecture is essentially a collection of services. These services communicate with each other. The communication can involve either as simple data passing or it could involve two or more services coordinating some activity. Some means of connecting services to each other is needed. Service-oriented architectures are not a new thing.

The first service-oriented architecture for many people in the past was with the use DCOM or Object Request Brokers (ORBs) based on the CORBA specification. The term "Web Services" can be confusing. It is, unfortunately, often used in many different ways. Compounding this confusion is the term "services" that has a different meaning than the term "Web Services." The term Web Services refers to the technologies that allow for making connections. Services are what you connect together using Web Services. A service is the endpoint of a connection. Also, a service has some type of underlying computer system that supports the connection offered. The combination of services - internal and external to an organization - makes up a service-oriented architecture.

TechStone provides the necessary support to enable clients to evaluate the technology of SOA solutions as well as establish a future state for a SOA implementation. An important emphasis on knowledge transfer from the TechStone consultants to client personnel is always essential.

The key components that allow clients to reach their goals include:

• Building a SOA Best Practices
• Applying SOA principles to projects
• Realizing a Service-Oriented solution
• Evolving enterprise architecture
• Affecting organizational changes
• Helping clients to continue to succeed leveraging SOA

As companies revisit projects in 2007 that were once frozen due to a lagging economy, integration is at the forefront. Businesses continued during the recent downturn but technology didn't keep up due to a general lack of funding. That table is now turned and IT departments are tasked with catching up to their business counterparts. The most important and common projects heavily involve the integration of systems. These are business-to- business integration projects involving clients and their customers, suppliers, distributors and partners.

As well, integration includes internal application-to-application projects for integrating ERP, custom and legacy systems. TechStone has helped clients integrate their internal procurement systems with their customers and suppliers. Transactions are consequently automated and business processes streamlined. The costs of doing business are greatly reduced at the invoice and purchase level. TechStone has also helped clients integrate their ERP systems sometimes spanning the world. Financial processes that once took hours to days now take only seconds. These heterogeneous systems that previously couldn't share data can now transfer and process critical business information.